Sketchbook Blog of Artist Robert James

New Art Table, A Sketch, And Electrical Schematics

Mmmm. Tea.

My sketchbooks and blog have been so neglected this past week. This morning I caught up on comment replies and reading the blogs I follow, and today I’m going to see what a “gallery format” post looks like and talk about random things.

I built a new art room table and am so pleased with it. The old one looked really cool (a Saarinen look-alike) but it was super wobbly and not very big. If one person was scribbling, another was banging on the old typewriter, and another was trying to flatten some clay- the poor table just couldn’t take it. But the NEW table? Oh, it can! The base is 3 Ikea shelf units in an “H” shape and on top is a solid slab door. Some whitewash and 4 coats of varnish have made for a really good looking and durable surface. The top weighs 80 pounds. It. Does. Not. Move. And the red stools my wife found for the room are a great punch of color.

The art room is shared by the whole family and the shelves underneath the table provide storage for lots of stuff. There are grown-up art supplies, kids’ craft stuff, and board games, among other things. I’m trying to organize everything so that anyone can find what they’re looking for. I think I’m doing a good job of it because a visiting four year old found the play-doh very quickly. Lots of little boxes from The Container Store make it easy to find play-doh, glitter glue, crayons, and temporary tattoos.

There’s a view of my sketchbook in there. The ink got away from me, but that’s ok. The image is something I want to develop further so I’ll be revisiting it with a different approach. I’ve been painting a bit lately. Small pieces, 8×10. A couple of them are good starts. Maybe I’ll show you sometime.

Electrical Schematics. How am I going to fit that in to this post, you ask? This is how. We have a stack of electrical schematics that my father-in-law gave us to use as drawing paper. He’s a retired electrical engineer. Normally we use the back of the paper. Reduce, reuse, recycle, right? Now some of these diagrams are really interesting and I think it would be fun to incorporate them into some artwork. So the other day I was sitting on a groovy red stool at the new art table, glueing some electrical diagrams to a masonite panel, when my son walked in.

Nathan: “What are you doing, Dad?”

Me: “I’m trying to stick this diagram to this panel with acrylic polymer without getting any bubbles underneath and without ruining the paper.”

Nathan: “Oh, cool. You know what you should do?”

Me: “What’s that?”

Nathan: “You should paint over it kinda lightly so you can still see some of the lines, and then do a drawing on top of that.”

Me: “Are you inside my brain?! That’s exactly what I was thinking. High five, buddy.”

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Love your art room – makes the artshed look a bit lame! The organisation looks great – that is my downfall. The gallery style looks good to – nice to see different aspects of your creativity. Unfortunately the top picture didn’t show on this.

On a random but not entirely unrelated note – Arcade Fire use what looks like an electrical diagram symbol on their last album – I wondered if it is a common American sign? I’ll need to dig it out – its on a t-shirt I’ve got too.

Weird about the top picture not showing. On my computer it looks fine, but on the ipad it doesn’t show up. I wonder why that is. I edited a couple of images, or rather changed the sequence. Maybe that threw something off.

There’s so much to like in this post. Yeah, I fight compete with my little kids for art space. It’s my Ikea table (I also cobbled together an innovative little Swedish workpace) doesn’t just hold my computer, art supplies, and sketchbooks, but nearby are my kids paints, crayons, chalk, markers, glitter, glue, stickers, and all sorts of other things that, in general, shouldn’t get too close to sketchbooks and pricey little computers with fruit-shaped logos on them!